


Fall out of the world

by notveryhandy



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23908093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notveryhandy/pseuds/notveryhandy
Summary: Sometimes, people fall through the gaps.Sometimes, it’s a good thing.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	Fall out of the world

Sometimes, people fall through the gaps. There are traces of who once was, of course - of course - but they are gone. Irretrievable. 

Sometimes, that’s a good thing. Clara’s called herself many things, so many she can hardly remember, but she’s never called herself a good person.

That’s probably why she pretends to be the Doctor. It’s identity theft, yes, but by now nobody will notice one more face to add to the list of Doctors. 

She’s memorable. She will last. People die, but memories don’t, and if there’s anything she’s ever wanted it’s to be known.

Only through masks. This one she calls the Doctor, when hopes are high and life is bright.

There are others, too.

* * *

She hears legends. Hears of bright burning palaces, beautiful in the chaos. Hears of broken, wounded worlds, brought to their knees by ghosts and strangers. Hears of the Doctor, an on occasion-

The Master. Those are the dark ones, the ones with nought but death in the end. The ones with twisting shadows and coiling lies, ones that overtake you far too quickly. Ones that can drown you in blackness and bleakness and all that is _wrong_ with the world.

They’re sharp and shining and breakable, the broken glass of stories, shards of horror thrown out across the universe.

Sometimes, the light gets blinding and tiring and she hides in the cool, welcoming shade of that title.

* * *

Masks slip, but even Clara’s own self is projected and imagined, stolen and reformed and shaped into something just a little dangerous. She likes it that way. Where some speak of the Storm, the Fall, the Night, they don’t always mean a Time Lord.

Sometimes she gets the titles, and certainly she enjoys it. She’s the worst of the immortals because she’s _not_ \- she may be living now, but death is permanently on the horizon.

There is nothing like her, and she appreciates that, but then she puts on another mask, smiles, and nobody questions a word she says.

They wouldn’t want to, anyway.

* * *

People fall out of the world, but Clara can hold on. She’s not the Doctor, running to everything before it flares and fades forever. She’s not running to the Doctor, either, and thus she is the Doctor, because anyone can be the Doctor, except the people who know the Doctor.

But this time, they don’t whisper that name when she arrives on an old planet she’d visited long ago. The words off their lips are _Master_ and _please don’t,_ and she loves that.

Oh, if the Doctor could see this now. He’d be so afraid and horrified, but she knows it would be familiar, too.

Resentment catches in her throat, until she moves on and runs and then it is all fine because if she cannot see it then it has not happened.

* * *

The humans are crying-

She is caught off-guard by the realisation that, no, she’s not quite them anymore. The civilisation is crumbling, and she holds the leader still, frozen.

It is exhilarating, seeing such fear. The onlookers must see it, the switch - see Clara melting away into a different person, shedding all that warmth and cheeriness in an instant. When they ask her name, as always, because to be a person you must have a name-

She hisses _Master_ and pushes a knife closer, though clothes, through skin, twists it and watches.

They’re all so _pretty_ when they beg.

* * *

Missy grins, eyes hungry for something she doesn't recognise and bright with fascination. “So you did it, little girl. I was worried for a minute you might be me, but _my,_ this is far more interesting.”

Clara’s fingers curl around the knife she always carries, nowadays, and debates stabbing Missy, leaving her on the floor to bleed out. “What are you trying to say.”

Not a question, even if she doesn’t know the answer. Her voice is flat as can be. She’s not opening up around Missy.

“I heard the screaming,” Missy says casually. “Do indulge me once in a while.”

The survivors were so loud, loud, and if anyone knows their noise it’s Missy. “What’s wrong with me being you? You sounded worried.”

“Ooh, you’re more fun than I thought! Clara Clara Clara, the Doctor’s sweet little friend. Look how far you’ve come.”

Far too far.

She loves it. It doesn’t matter who _she_ is.

They both do.

* * *

Missy smiles like a shark, and compliments her on everything the Doctor hates. That is the nature of the Doctor and the Master, and though she’s not them in the slightest she understands them a little.

She’s right, she’s infallible, she’s unbreakable, and this is what got here (gets her? Will get her?) killed.

The Doctor needs compassion, the Doctor needs forgiveness. Without it, he’d snap. (Sometimes, he lets it happen.)

The Master needs control, and to see themself in other people (so does the Doctor). The Master loves to see people breaking and transforming, because if those pitiful aliens can do it-

So can the Doctor.

Clara burns and burns and burns, watches empires topple and civilisations crumble, watches another fraction of the universe shatter.

It is beautiful. People scream.

(They scream _Master._ She lets them think that.)

(The survivors cry, and she grins and she grins and she grins.)

Sometimes people fall out of the world. Sometimes people shatter.

(Sometimes, it’s a good thing.)


End file.
